Editorial Board – Issue #6

Editor-in-Chief

Sarah Z. Sleeper’s writing is on display at Fairfield University’s Bellarmine Museum until September 28, 2012, in an exhibition called “Ekphrasis.” She just completed a collection of short stories, A Few Innocuous Lines (and is looking for a good agent). She is on the editorial team at New Rivers Press and helped edit the forthcoming book, American Fiction. She also screened manuscripts for the publisher’s “Many Voices Project.” For twenty years Sarah did a combination of journalism and business communications. Her work has been published in Fortune, Christian Science Monitor, National Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, by a CBS-owned website, and in other publications. She received three journalism awards. She also wrote and edited for many high-tech companies including Qualcomm, SAP, Siemens and Accenture. Early on in her career Sarah was editor of a computer magazine, as well as editor and writer for an English-language magazine in Okinawa, Japan. She was also editor for the American Chamber of Commerce there, and for Kadena Air Base’s 18th Services Squadron. She has an English degree from the University of New Mexico, and an MFA from Fairfield University. Her proudest professional accomplishment is completing her MFA and making the transition from business writing to literary writing. http://www.SarahZSleeper.com

Fiction Editors

Carolyn J. Brown is co-editor of fiction for Mason’s Road. She received a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Charter Oak State College, where her poem “Life Equation” won first prize and publication in Alumni Reflections. After a career in various aspects of computer software on both coasts, she joined a writers group and was inspired to study creative writing at Fairfield University. She is currently at work on a collection of short stories.

Allison Kirk is a fiction co-editor of Mason’s Road and a current MFA candidate at Fairfield University. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and a minor in English from Louisiana State University. Allison has since pursued dual careers in marketing and creative writing, often finding the two overlap. Originally from Louisiana, Allison currently lives in North Carolina, where she works full-time in the marketing field. She is writing her first novel.

Creative Nonfiction Editors

Zac Zander currently resides in Lancaster, PA but grew up all over the east coast. He is a candidate for an MFA in creative nonfiction at Fairfield University, where he is working on a collection of visual essays.Colin Hosten is a Pisces who once dreamed of being a professional wrestler. Originally from Trinidad, he now lives in Connecticut with his husband. He enjoys writing and reading essays, and is currently an MFA candidate at Fairfield University, focusing on creative nonfiction.

Poetry Editors

BarbaraWanamaker graduated from Fairfield University, magna cum laude, in 2009 with a major in English and minor in art history. She returned to Fairfield in 2011 to pursue the goal of earning her MFA. Barbara was assistant editor for the literary journal Dogwood. She is co-editor of the poetry section for issue six of Mason’s Road. Barbara is published in Mason’s Road and in the inaugural issue of Spry. She shares her 90-year-old Connecticut home with her husband Greg and Cairn terrier Riley. Barbara enjoys playing with her six grandsons and one granddaughter, loves life and is grateful to God for her family and friends. She enjoys sharing her many blessings with others.

Devon Bohm graduated cum laude from Smith College in 2011 with a BA in English literature and language. While an undergraduate, she studied English and classical literature at University College London and her poetry was published in the literary arts journal Labrys. Upon her graduation she was awarded the Smith College Hatfield Prize for best short story. Devon is currently a candidate for an MFA in creative writing at Fairfield University with a dual concentration in poetry and fiction.

Drama Editor

Jenni Swan is a writer, actress, executive assistant, and avid traveler based out of New York City. She received a bachelor’s degree in theatre and history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is currently a candidate for an MFA in creative writing from Fairfield University.

Craft Essay Editors

Reuben Hayslett has had his fiction and nonfiction short stories appear in The Splinter Generation, the Oregon Literary Review, Translit Magazine, and most recently the Surreal South 2011 Anthology, which has previously published Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Olen Butler. Hayslett lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he works as a political activist while writing his first novel manuscript.

Kate Gorton will soon have her MFA when she finishes up her final semester in Fairfield University’s Creative Writing Program. She is working on a full-length novel, alongside proofreading and editing projects for online literary journals and small presses and teaching a creative writing class at her local library. Her craft essay “Our Secret Selves: Characterization in Amy and Isabelle” was published in Mason’s Road’s fifth issue. She lives in Rhode Island.

Michael White is the author of six novels: Soul Catcher, which was a Booksense and Historical Novels Review selection, as well as a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award, A Brother’s Blood, which was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book and a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers nominee; The Blind Side of the Heart, an Alternate Book-of-the-Month Club selection; A Dream of Wolves, which received starred reviews from Booklist and Publisher’s Weekly, and is under option by Miracle Pictures; and The Garden of Martyrs, also a Connecticut Book Award finalist and which is currently being made into an opera. His latest novel (William Morrow, 2010), Beautiful Assassin, won the 2011 Connecticut Book Award for Fiction. A collection of his short stories, Marked Men, was published by the University of Missouri Press. He has also published more than forty-five short stories in national magazines and journals, and has won the Advocate Newspapers Fiction Award and been nominated for both a National Magazine Award and a Pushcart Prize. He was the founding editor of the yearly fiction anthology American Fiction as well as Dogwood. He is the founder and director of Fairfield University’s low-residency MFA Creative Writing Program (www.fairfield.edu/mfa).

Founding Editor

Lisa Calderone is the author of How to Raise A Family & A Career Under One Roof (Bookhaven Press, 1997) and co-author with Paul & Sarah Edwards of The Entrepreneurial Parent (Putnam/Tarcher, 2002), which was featured on the Oprah Winfrey show the month it was released. A Creative Type by nature, Lisa spearheaded the launch of Mason’s Road as her capstone project while a graduate student in Fairfield’s MFA in Creative Writing program. She was also on the University marketing team that launched the program and fell under the Enders Island spell during a team visit, and then graduated with the first student cohort in January 2011. Currently a communications consultant, Lisa lives in Guilford, Connecticut with her un-Brady-bunch-like family who all give Nika, their golden retriever, way too much attention while listening to Sheba, their African grey, have the last laugh.